


The Worst and Best Year

by tommy_michael_shelby



Category: Black Mirror (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Romance, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27028498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tommy_michael_shelby/pseuds/tommy_michael_shelby
Summary: Matt surprises Joe for Christmas one year after they meet under unfortunate circumstances on Christmas day. Includes plenty of post-White Christmas exposition.
Relationships: Matt Trent/Joe Potter
Kudos: 6





	The Worst and Best Year

For Matt and Joe, it was a strange year. It was both the worst and best of their lives. Joe was arrested, tortured, and imprisoned, and Matt was forced to participate in this mess, but this was also the year that they met each other. For a few months afterwards, they lived painful, difficult lives. Matt longed for Joe, and Joe longed for Matt, and they both longed to be free. But things changed. As a blocked man, it was easy for Matt to sneak into the police station unseen. He broke Joe’s restraints and wrenched his head from the machine that trapped him. At home in his apartment, he carefully opened up Joe’s neck and chest to remove the cookie’s sensors and nursed his resulting wounds. Joe woke up in pain from the operation and shell-shocked from the ordeal he went through for the last few months, but mostly, he was relieved to be free.  
He wanted to voice his concern a few days later when he saw Matt walk into the bathroom with a thick sewing needle, but when he came out Joe could see him again. Yes, he was squinting and his eyes were bloodshot and swollen, but he was still Matt, with his dark hair and his winning smile and his blasted yellow button-up.   
After a couple of weeks, once Joe had recovered and Matt had found himself a pair of glasses, they went to the train station and caught a train straight to Denmark, where Matt had put down a deposit on a cabin. A real cabin, in the middle of the dark, snowy woods. Matt got a job right away, as the “tech man” for a little clothing shop in town. Social media promotions and the like. When young men came into the shop, he would give them dating advice. Joe took longer to find work, still mentally recovering. After a few months of living like this, he decided that domestic work was the right life for him. He spent his days cooking, cleaning, and gardening. Every day, when Matt came home from work, Joe would be outside in the garden, waiting to receive a kiss and a bone-crushing hug. But today, it was Joe who was gone.   
Matt had told him to run into town for groceries, to conceal what he believed to be the sneakiest surprise in the history of surprises. It was now December 22nd, a year since everything went wrong and right for them. Christmas was three days away. Joe had a strange, mostly bad relationship with the holiday. Last year, Christmas was one of the worst days of the poor man’s life. So this year, Matt wanted to make it his best.  
He started with the tree. Living in the forest, this was easy. He threw on his flannel jacket, grabbed an axe from the mudroom, and headed out. Matt tramped through the snow for five minutes before he found the perfect tree. A fir, the perfect shape and size, like a Christmas tree out of a storybook. With a few swings of his axe, it was down. Dragging the tree back home was an ordeal. It left a trail of needles in the snow, and left a trail of snow in the house. The tree stand was another struggle, and Matt had to restrain himself from screaming at the tree, instead muttering every curse word he knew at it under his breath. When it was finally up, he took a step back. It was beautiful. Matt would never admit this to a soul, but he had never put up a tree in his life. So, he thought to himself, he was a bit of a prodigy.   
The box of decorations came next. He had kept it hidden for months in the cupboard, a big U-Haul box he had shipped in from his childhood home, full of tinsel, baubles, lights, and every little festive trinket his mother had in her attic. Although Matt liked to think that he wasn’t a sentimental man, he couldn’t hide from the fact that he loved trimming the tree. Maybe it was because it reminded him of his childhood in Chicago, or maybe because he was doing it for the man he loved, but he felt happier and happier with each pine bough and candle he put up. He clapped his hands at the smart speaker and told it to play Frank Sinatra. Soon, the box was empty and the tree was full.   
Matt preheated the oven. He had a deep love for baking that had begun when he was just a teenager. Yes, he saw the irony of making cookies of all things, but Joe loved them. Specifically those crispy little spherical cookies with the powdered sugar. Into the bowl went the flour, almonds, and butter. Matt remembered the first time he had cooked for Joe, remembered the way Joe called the food “unique” and “interesting” but still ate it, out of love. He had perfected a few recipes since then, just for Joe.   
Finally, Matt went to the bedroom and reached to the back of the dresser drawer for the last part of his surprise. The most important part, and the part that scared him to death. From a drawer he pulled a little drawstring bag. Inside the bag was a box, and inside the box was a ring. He wanted to marry Joe so, so bad, but he had always thought it was too soon to ask. Now that they had been together for nearly a year, he decided to take the plunge. To ask the big question from which there was no returning. He put the little ring box in his back pocket.   
“You can do this, Matthew Trent. He loves you as much as you love him. You can do this.”  
He heard the car’s brakes squeak in the driveway. He considered waiting for Joe outside in the snow-covered garden, but decided it was better to let him open the door himself. When the door swung open, and Joe stepped through in his gray scarf and silly winter coat, Matt’s heart soared. His Joe. He gave the snow-covered man a kiss and a bone-crushing hug, and watched his eyes light up as he looked around. Somewhere deep in his heart, there was a fear that Joe wouldn’t like his surprise, that Christmas was still a trigger for him and that it would only bring him fear. Boy, was he wrong. Joe was on the verge of tears, but only happy ones. Matt followed him as he went to get a closer look at the shimmering tree and the decorated mantle. And then, he did it. He got down on one knee. Joe gave him a look of confusion for a split second, and then he dropped his grocery bag. He smiled so wide he almost laughed, tears forming in his eyes. Matt and Joe kissed, and laughed, and kissed some more, and laughed some more. Joe never actually said the word “yes” out loud. They both just knew. Later that night, Matt would burn the cookies, but they wouldn’t care. Later that night, they would sing along to the radio and make a fire and do god knows what else, but none of it would be better than this moment. This was the moment that Matt Trent and Joe Potter knew that this was not the worst year of their lives. Nothing that brought them together could be anything but the best.


End file.
